“We can’t be on a date,” she said clumsily.

He raised his eyebrows. “We can’t?”

“For one thing I’m only fifteen.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. She thought he was masking disappointment, repositioning. “We can still be friends, can’t we? Even if you’re just fifteen.”

“I guess so.”

He glanced around the square, breaking the slight tension. “Look at that. It’s January, and they’re still stocking Befana dolls.” There was a stall stocked with them next to an old painted wooden merry-go-round, around which small children clustered.

Befana was the sister of Santa Claus. She wore a kerchief and glasses, and carried a broom. She had missed the Three Wise Men on their way to visit the baby Jesus. In recompense she brought presents for good Italian children on the twelfth day of Christmas—and for the bad ones, bits of coal.

“To me she looks kind of like a witch,” Daniel said.

“You don’t have Befana in America?”

“No. I grew up with the Coca-Cola Santa Claus. But that was okay.”

“We always had Befana, without Santa.” It was true. Christmas was celebrated in the Crypt; there were great mass parties in the theaters and meeting halls where the age groups would mingle, and games and competitions would be played. And there were presents, toys and games and clothes, even bits of jewelry, cosmetics, and clothes, commercially bought, for the older ones. But Befana, a woman, was the central figure, not Christ or Santa, and the great celebration was always on Twelfth Night, the Feast of the Epiphany.

The waiter delivered their tea.

Daniel said, “You mentioned we? You mean your family? Let’s see. There’s you, and Pina, and your aunt from the Pantheon . . .”

“More than that.” She managed a smile. “We’re a big family.”

He smiled back. “It’s nice to see you look a little less worried. So, your family. What do your parents do?”

How could she answer that? I’ve never spoken to my father. My mother is a hundred years old . . . There was so much she could tell him; there was nothing she could tell him. He was, after all, a contadino.

He saw her hesitating, and began, smoothly, to tell her of his own upbringing. His father, as he’d told her, was a diplomat who had had a series of postings with NATO and the American diplomatic corps, culminating in his nine years in Italy. Daniel had seen a lot of the world, especially in his early years, and had decided he wanted to study politics himself.

“I always liked this square,” he said.

“Me, too.”

“It’s got the kind of depth of history I like about Europe. I know that’s an obvious thing for an American to say.”

“Well, I never met an American before.”